Better Off This Way
by Perfections-Cat
Summary: Sasuke had always wanted to leave his brother in the place he had left him all those years ago.


Author's note: So, hi! Just a word of warning - I wrote this after a bottle of sangria. Make of that what you will. And umm, enjoy? Oh, and there were two stipulations for this piece: One was that I included a line about butterflies of the _Loveless_ variety, and the other was the theme of diappointment. Not sure how well my mind really comprehended that...

* * *

It was an odd scene, he recalled. The sky had been just a bit too grey, not quite beckoning forth rain, but troubling the sunshine nonetheless with its seemingly impenetrable haze. And it had been warm. Not too warm though. He remembered the wind pulling shivers out of his spine, and how his brother had remained unmoved by those curious tugs.

Very little seemed to move his brother. Or so that was how he had come to view his only living kin. But back then, it had felt different. It had felt _real_. His brother turned – perhaps he had shuddered just a little too hard with that last bit of cold slicing along his skin – with a soft smile on his face. Though he wasn't quite there, now that he thought on it. It was a smile that was simply moved by some other inner working that could not rightly be called brotherly affection. But at that moment, it had moved him nonetheless.

He watched, quietly, a shy hint of a smile answering his brother's gesture, hands curling into balls of warmth against his lips. Then, their locked gaze broke as his brother turned and knocked over the black king sitting so astutely on their chess board. It had a hard sound, like a block of marble tipping over onto concrete. Dull, and yet ringing out in cracked perfection.

This is what Itachi must have felt.

"Get up!" he screamed, the words tearing ruthlessly out of his throat with a venomous sense of satisfaction.

Sasuke coiled his fingers tightly around his last remaining kunai, reveled absently in the slickness his last actions had brought to the weapon. Not that he could recall what had just taken place between them. It was simply a blur of movement, shattered by an awing span of blackness that ate at him almost as tenaciously as the hatred he currently felt.

How it had all come about did not matter. The only thing that meant something was that he had proven his point, proven himself. For the first time in his life, Itachi could not ignore him. Could not simply brush him aside with a "Maybe later, Sasuke" or a "Foolish brother".

It was unavoidable. Always had been as far as he was concerned. And now it was real. Crimson slick and reeking of copper-tinted sweat. He was enjoying this, and yet there was an undeniable surge of anger that lashed violently against him.

"Get up!" he screamed again. But he wouldn't move. Sasuke watched irritably as his brother's lungs inflated, then deflated, the only hint of life that seem to eek from that cursed figure. "Quit playing dead, you fucking murderer!"

This wasn't enough. There needed to be more. Not just this simple anticlimax, where he was defeated and that was the end. No, this wasn't something Sasuke was willing to accept.

"Get up!" Feet scuffed hard against the dirt as his face hardened. Blood splattered lips sunk together harshly, forming a tight line that spoke nothing. Only his gaze boiled, boring with direct intent into the shaking form that lay only yards away from him, dropped at exactly the point they had last met.

His fingers bit harder into the metal weapon in his hand. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted how funny it was to feel blood as it dried upon his hands. Not simple marks and cuts that bled for a moment, but someone else's life drying up in his very palms. He let loose a low hiss, remembering the other time he had torn through someone's flesh in this manner. Not quite the same. This was harder, driven by the true desire for a lifeless end and not some playmate's brawl where the feeling was only half-hearted and wrapped up far too tightly in the wish that this wasn't happening, that he would somehow change his fate.

Nothing changed in those few passing seconds that seemed to drag on like a lifetime and a half. Sasuke grew tired of waiting, muscles impatiently contracting and releasing, like a cat kneading the earth before the kill. In his head rang the voice that had guided him all these years, that cold, unforgiving thrill of emotion that murmured _this isn't all that you owe to him_.

Sasuke spit a wad of semi-coagulated blood from his mouth. "If you won't rise…"he whispered roughly. But the sentence was never finished, was never meant to be finished. Rather, action punctuated that subtle threat; feet skimmed over the ground, flawless in speed and precision of step. Pain was easily forgotten, a splotch of dirt crushed by his racing anger.

"Get up!" he yelled, this time slamming to a sudden halt before Itachi's prostrate body. And when his words failed to elicit any sort of response, save for the ever present rise and fall of his brother's chest, Sasuke cocked his leg back and fired a bullet of a kick into the left side, just below the ribcage.

There was a brief hiccup of life, a sputter of a cough sending flecks of blood and dust flying out. Then nothing more. Again and again, Sasuke nailed his brother's body with kick after kick. Harder. Faster. Always trying for a different place, and never fully satisfied when the sharp crack of bone splintered the air. It was mechanical, fluidly trained movements, over and over again.

Panting heavily, Sasuke glared down at Itachi, too tired to cry out. This should have lasted longer. Should have given him the opportunity to repay his brother for years of agony, for having to carry around those memories, for betraying the future. Instead, he merely laid there, a heap of broken flesh.

And then, there came laughter. A deep sound that echoed painfully out of Itachi's chest.

"Is that all your hatred affords you?" came the choking response Sasuke had been waiting to hear. It sang of the Itachi he had come to know in his dreams, that hard-to-reach, unconcerned song his brother had sung to him so many times. To hear him speak like that hurt. It still stung him, a constant reminder of who his brother was, which wasn't anything like the brother he had so adored. With marked effort, Itachi pushed himself off of his stomach and collapsed onto his back with another puff of laughter.

The energy spent effort had sapped him of was quickly replaced by another roiling surge of anger. Sasuke merely scoffed at the question, balled his fist, and sent it pummeling into the smirking face. Pulled it back, locking the elbow by his cheek, and then shot it loose. Again, and again.

He was secretly horrified by this inability to control his own actions. Once started, they never seemed to cease until every available resource had been spent within his own body. Until oxygen deprivation forced his burning muscles to shake and refuse to answer the beckons of his mind. His fingers quivered with exhaustion, the tremors snaking up his arm and down his spine, where they curved around and dropped heavily into the pit of his stomach.

Sasuke let his arm fall, the knuckles slipping past his brother's bruised cheek uncontrolled. His eyes dully noted the pattern of blood he had left behind, the crimson coating spread like the wings of a pinned butterfly. Beautifully displayed essence of life shimmering helplessly against Itachi's skin. Even now, his brother looked so damned beautiful. Completely unreachable, though the circumstance would have said that he was the better and his brother the one left to catch up.

With a jagged spasm of movement, Itachi gasped, then gurgled up another fountain of blood. Soundlessly, Sasuke found himself trying to sweep away the red river of life seeping past his brother's lips. Torn fingersmoving over and over again, swallowing the blood with every pass, pushing it into the ground.

It was terrifying, he suddenly realized. The remnants of his brother's life were everywhere: tatters of cloth fluttering about, blood pooling around his body, splattered all over the dirt, staining his hands. Scalding saline webbed between his lashes. Overburdened, his eyes let fall the unmistakable signs of his remorse.

It was what he had always wanted, the end he had sought. Avengers had no other purpose. And yet, Sasuke couldn't help but hate it. Without a word, he tried vainly to shove the blood pouring from the wound he had rent straight through his Itachi's left lung back into the hole. "Nii-san…."

"What would you live for now…." The words came forth not so much as a question, but as a mocking gesture, where the answer was already known and the horrible implications of that statement was finally about to hit home. Itachi's lips curved into a half-smile, a movement sweet with finality. And it was then that the true horror of it all, his brother's actions, his words that long ago night struck him. _Hate me. Curse me._ _Live only for me. _There was nothing. "….how..disappointing…".


End file.
